“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer.

By the 2080’s, the UKCP09 projections for different parts of the UK suggest: an increase in average summer temperatures of between about 1C and 8C: an increase in average winter rainfall volumes of between around 3% and 70%: a projected change in average summer rainfall volumes ranging from a decrease of about 60% to an increase of about 10%.

Their error ranges are so large as to hardly give any confidence, but what does the historical data show? We have already seen that there is no evidence of increasing rainfall in winter. What about summer droughts then? The UK Met Office graph below clearly shows there is no downward trend in summer rainfall levels.